


weep little lion man (you're not as brave as you were at the start)

by good_ho_mens



Series: DC One-offs [12]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Damian Wayne is a good brother, Dick Grayson is a Good Brother, Electrocution, Gen, Hurt Tim Drake, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jason Todd is a good brother, Kidnapping, Past Suicidal Thoughts, Ra's Al Ghul Can Fight Me In a Denny's Parking Lot, Stephanie Brown is a good sister, The League of Assassins (DCU), Tim Should Talk About His Feelings, but eyyyyy another wip ive had for a year finished!, everyone but jason dick damian and tim are in very little of this im sorryyyy, low key don't like the pacing of this but oh well, theres a zoo metaphor that i Really Did Not Pull Of Well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:01:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_ho_mens/pseuds/good_ho_mens
Summary: “I said,” Timothy grunts, pushing up onto his elbows. “I won’t let you have him.”Ra’s turns away from Damian, back to Timothy. “Then get up.”
Relationships: Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Series: DC One-offs [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623775
Comments: 16
Kudos: 544





	weep little lion man (you're not as brave as you were at the start)

“Did you really believe I would let you get away with it?” Ra’s growls as Damian is shoved to his knees alongside his brothers.

The room is dark, lit by candle light alone, but Damian doesn’t need it to know where every exit is, where every guard is posted. He grew up walking on shattered glass through dark corridors, and he knows his grandfather’s throne room by scent alone.

Blood and sweat and smoke and fear.

Damian starts to reply, but the gag in his mouth keeps him from retorting. Ra’s steps closer, and Damian lifts his chin, meets his eye.

Grandfather turns as he reaches him, yanking Timothy’s gag down around his neck roughly. “Well, detective?”

Timothy moves his jaw back and forth, stretching it, and Damian can see him surveying the room under his nonchalant exterior, formulating a plan. Slowly, he looks up at Ra’s, and the idiot smiles.

“I mean, yeah, I guess. It’s been... what?” His smile turns to a sneer, “Months?”

Ra’s grabs the front of his shirt --his  _ shirt, _ because they were taken as civilians, kidnapped in public where they could not fight back-- and pulls him upwards until they’re almost nose to nose. “I grow tired of your games.”

“Maybe you should take a dip in the pit then, to calm your nerves,” Timothy says calmly, ignoring both Jason and Richard’s warning looks and Damian’s no doubt bewildered one. He hums, “You do have at least one left, don’t you?”

Timothy grunts as he hits the floor, his head bouncing against the stone. Next to him, Richard struggles against his binds and the Leaguer that holds him tightly in place.

“You have amused me so far, bringing back your father alone, stealing my operatives out from under me, daring to look me, the Demon’s Head, in the eye only to disrespect me, but no more. When you set fire to my bases, you crossed the line, Timothy. The game has ended.”

“I’m not playing a  _ game, _ Ra’s. If you really believe that you underestimate me more than I thought.”

Damian tries to ask a question past his gag, but it only comes off as a muffled growl. Grandfather turns his gaze to him, bending down to lift his chin with one finger. 

“What a disappointment you are,” Ra’s says, and drops his head again.

It shouldn’t hurt him. It does.

Timothy speaks again with the same calm tone, but there is something darker in his eyes, “This is between us, Ra’s. Let them go.”

For a moment, a somehow simultaneously terrifying and relieving moment, Ra’s seems to consider it, and then he grabs Timothy’s arm, turning to drag him to the middle of the room despite Jason’s thrashing and Richard’s muffled protests.

He drops Timothy again, and smiles. “No.”

Something creeps down Damian’s back, settling in his spine. It’s dread, and something worse. 

The first time Ra’s slams his foot into Timothy’s ribs he barely makes a sound. He drops from his knees to brace himself on his elbows, taking deep breaths.

“Get up,” Ra’s tells him.

Damian freezes in place.

His mother’s nails biting into his arm as she kneels next to him, hissing in his ear. Grandfather watching, unimpressed. 

_ “Get up.” _

Just like Damian all those years ago, Timothy does.

Grandfather’s boot connects with Timothy’s stomach before he can even steady himself. He leans down, sneering, “I helped you. I took you in and nurtured your theory when even your  _ family _ turned their backs on you.”

Richard makes a wounded sound, tipping forward, eyebrows drawn into a glare.

“You kidnapped my friend,” Timothy responds, spitting blood onto the ground. He gets up before Ra’s can tell him to. “You got people killed.”

This time, Ra’s knee connects with his face, and Damian can hear his nose break with a sickening crunch. “I  _ saved _ you. You were dying in that desert, bleeding out like a common fool.”

Damian and Richard both freeze at his words, but it’s Jason who lurches forward, almost breaking out of his captors hold, eyes flashing green brighter than Damian has seen in years. Timothy turns to him, eyes widening.

“No, Jason, that’s not what happened, I swear to god. I was--”

“Not dead enough,” Ra’s finishes for him, brushing his hair away from his face as if he’s composing himself. “Rest assured, I was not about to ruin your mind or follow the same path as my daughter. I have no need for a brainless  _ pet.” _

Damian jerks in his chains and the arms of the assassin holding him just as Richard does, cursing and threatening unsuccessfully under the gags.

Timothy’s face clouds over, and he lunges at Ra’s. Whatever is in his eyes scares Damian, whether he would admit it out loud or not.

Ra’s grabs his shoulders before he can land a hit, and with his wrists tied behind his back, Timothy has no leverage or defense as Ra’s slams their heads together and punches him in the gut.

He hits the ground with a wheeze.

“Get up,” Ra’s says. When Timothy doesn’t immediately comply, he reaches down to grab his chin roughly, “Is that all you have, my detective?”

Damian doesn’t need to look at his brother’s to know they’re reacting the same way he is. That they too want to grab Timothy and get away and never come back. His fingers itch with the need to defend and protect, but the chains wrapped around them keep him in place, so he can only glare.

Timothy lifts his head halfway off the floor, his fist braced against the ground. ‘Why?”

Grandfather looks like he expected this as he smiles, “Why, what?”

“Why now? You had your chance to off me, you threw me out a fucking window,” Timothy rasps, and he pointedly avoids looking at Richard. “So why, after months, are you suddenly angry again? Change of heart, Ra’s, or has something gone wrong?”

Damian is stunned as Ra’s turns, picking up a chalice of wine from a nearby table. He knew that Timothy was involved briefly with the League, he’d told them that much, however vague he was on the details. But this… routine, this familiarity between the two of them, it baffles him. 

How deep was Timothy in all of this? Did he really escape all on his own?

Not for the first time, guilt over his actions when father was lost rips through him.

Ra’s sips his wine, tone conversational. “I am getting old, Timothy. This body won’t sustain much longer.”

Damian’s breath hitches, and he ignores Richard looking at him, concern in his eyes.

Timothy stares up at Ra’s, and slowly, he gets up. Ra’s smile is met with a steel glare. 

“I won’t let you have him.”

Wine sprays across the room in a cascade as Ra’s slams the metal chalice against Timothy’s head, sending him once again crumpling to the ground. He looms over him, danger in his posture. He looks at Damian again, and Damian… Damian shrinks back.

Maybe at one point, ages ago, he believed in his supposed destiny. He knew that one day he would be grandfather’s heir and he would be honored to do so.

Then he met father, and the rest of his family. He remembers the night sitting on Timothy’s favorite gargoyle, on a night that wasn’t bad, but was just after one, so the sorrow seeped into his Kevlar like a drug.

_ “You know you can be more than the destiny people set for you, right?” _

Damian stares back at his grandfather and he is terrified because he doesn’t want it, more than anything he doesn’t want it.

“I said,” Timothy grunts, pushing up onto his elbows. “I won’t let you have him.”

Ra’s turns away from Damian, back to Timothy. “Then  _ get up.” _

Suddenly, the pieces click into place, and Damian understands what this is about.

It seems Timothy puts it together just as he does, because his eyes flick to Damian’s once, holding there, his blue eyes piercing, and he gets up.

“If I do this, you let them go, you don’t harm them.”

“Of course. I am happy to agree. After I have you, they are nothing to me,” Ra’s says with a nod. He kicks him to the ground again, once in the chest and another in his stomach. “Get up.”

Timothy gets up.

Damian screams against the gag, because he is terrified to become what his grandfather raised him to be, but he is even more scared of losing his brother.

“Well done, my detective.” Ra’s picks up a staff from the corner of the room, stained with copper tones that used to be red. He presses a button on the side, and the escrima stick comes to life, buzzing with electricity. He slams it into Timothy’s side.

Timothy doesn’t scream at first, he doesn’t even cry out. It’s not until the fourth second that he lets out a pitiful cry, pressing his face to the floor.

Ra’s steps back, staff dropping to his side. “Get up.”

Damian shakes his head, and Richard sounds like he’s begging, and Jason pulls uselessly against his binds.

And Timothy gets up.

It goes on for so long that Damian loses track of time between his brother's screams and his grandfather's sneers. It goes for so long that Todd stops struggling and turns to press his face against Richard’s shoulder just so he doesn’t have to see, pride be damned. 

But Richard never looks away, despite the tears at the corners of his eyes, and Timothy keeps getting back up. 

Finally, finally, Ra’s steps back, dusting off his hands. “Very well, Timothy, you’ve convinced me.”

He signals to an assassin posted at the door, who walks over immediately and hauls Timothy up. 

“Let me say goodbye,” Timothy rasps, from fatigue or pain or damaged ribs or more likely, all of the above. “You owe me a goodbye, Ra’s.”

“I don’t owe you  _ anything.” _

“You owe me this,” Timothy insists, and to Damian’s surprise, grandfather inclines his head after a short pause, and leaves the room. The assassin holding him drops him unceremoniously to the floor, and on the other side of Richard, Jason growls. 

As soon as the room is clear, aside from the guards holding them, Richard starts to struggle again, trying to say something past the gag in his mouth. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Timothy says, and then he gets up, again, and somehow this time Damian thinks it’s even more brave. 

He half crawls, half drags himself over to them, reaching up to tear Richard’s gag off first. 

“Tim, what the hell--“

“Just--“ Timothy takes a shaking breath, yanking off Jason’s gag and then holding up a hand. “Just wait. One second.”

He’s so calm and it makes Damian livid as he pulls Damian’s gag off, a lot gentler than he handled the others. Damian growls, “You idiot.”

Timothy smiles at him, and Damian recoils at the sight of blood on his teeth. “There you are.”

“Yes, here I am, not in the position I am meant to be in.”

“I meant what I said, Damian. I wasn’t going to let him take you.”

“So instead you  _ sacrifice _ yourself for a  _ murderer--“ _

“I’m  _ saving _ my  _ brother,” _ Tim snaps, voice hard. “Don’t you dare look at me and say you’re nothing but a killer.”

Damian, for once at a loss for words, shuts up. 

“Care to share with the fucking class?” Jason asks, leaning forward as far as the chains around his wrists will allow. “‘Cause it looks to me like only half of us know what the hell is going on!”

Richard nods, looking between them frantically, “With less curses, what he said.”

“Grandfather plans to transfer his consciousness to Timothy. To make him his heir,” Damian bites, eyes locked with said moron. “So when Ra’s returns, you will concede your stupid self sacrificing stunt and I will take my rightful place--“

“Like hell,” Timothy says. Damian is getting very tired of being interrupted. 

“Yeah, not happening, runt.” Jason turns to Tim, “So what’s the plan? That’s why you got time alone, right? Clue us in, nerd.”

Timothy looks away, and Jason curses under his breath. Damian can feel anger bubbling in his chest, fighting with the fear that’s already there. Richard sounds almost desperate when he says, “Timmy? What’s the plan?”

Damian gets it. Even when he hated Timothy, he acknowledged that he always had a plan. It’s what made it so hard to kill him. But now, looking at his brother, he just looks tired. 

“The plan is giving Ra’s what he wants. Me.” Timothy swallows, and it looks painful. “He’s an ass, but he’s a man of his word. If I go with him, he’ll set you all free without harming you.”

“What about you?” Jason snaps, glaring Timothy down. 

Suddenly business like, Timothy looks up. “Oh yeah. Okay, so when you get back, you’ll need to switch the code our contingency plans are written in. Babs is the only other person who knows the key, and the only one who knows what’s inside, so if you let her know, she should be able to cover it no problem. In my apartment, under a loose floorboard, there are files for every ex-league member I’ve helped escape. You’ll need to contact them, get them to a safer location. Ra’s will get all my knowledge, which compromises their positions.”

“Tim--“ Richard starts, eyes wide.

It’s almost as if he doesn’t even hear him. Timothy just keeps talking. “Ra’s already knows our identities and the location of the cave, so you shouldn’t have to worry about all that. But do me a favor and scramble the Young Justice and Titan’s safe house locations, just in case? Other than that, I don’t think--“

“We don’t care about the stupid secrets!” Jason shouts, “We care about what the hell is going to happen to you!”

Timothy stares at them all, eyes wide. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Richard repeats with a hollow laugh. 

Swallowing again, and tipping forward slightly with his injuries, Timothy closes his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.”

Finding his voice again, Damian growls, “There is.”

“No, Damian, there’s not.” Timothy’s breath rattles. “There isn’t.”

“So this is it?” Richard asks, and his voice cracks. “You expect us to just leave you here? Not happening. I swore I wouldn’t leave you again and I’m not about to break that promise.”

Timothy drops his head so it’s pressed against Richard’s forehead. “When I saw you on that trapeze, and I thought you were the most amazing person I’d ever seen-- god, Dick, that hasn’t changed.”

Richard’s breath catches and he shakes his head against Timothy’s forehead. “Don’t you dare, little brother. Don’t you  _ dare.” _

“What he said. Shut the fuck up,” Todd snaps. “Shut up. Stop saying goodbye like this is the fucking end you asshole.”

Timothy lifts his head, turning to Jason. “Don’t leave again.”

“Kid--“

“Please, Jay. Don’t lose them again.”

His face is turned away from Damian, but there must be something there, because Jason slumps, and his lips turn into a quivering frown that he’s obviously trying to get under control. “Okay, Timber. I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“You better be there to hold me accountable or I swear to god,” Jason says, glaring again. “You hear me?”

“Okay,” Timothy replies easily, placating.

Damian doesn’t want a turn. He wants Timothy to ignore him. To hate him. He wants to hate Timothy. But Timothy turns to him anyway, and Damian glares. “Do not say goodbye.”

“Okay,” Timothy says again. He reaches out to brush a thumb over the bridge of Damian’s eyebrow, then leans forward and kisses him there. “I’m proud of you.”

Damian has only been kissed by his mother and father, and once by Richard, but he had thought Damian to be asleep. Scrunching his nose because he can’t wipe at it, Damian closes his eyes. 

When he opens them again, Timothy is being dragged across the room, and Ra’s is standing in the doorway, looking smug. Todd and Richard begin to fight again, shouting out obscenities and threats. 

“You promised to take me to the zoo tomorrow,” Damian calls lamely. 

Timothy’s eyes widen as he looks at him, and then the door closes, and Timothy is gone. 

Father crashes through the door two minutes later.

The assassins guarding them are unconscious in seconds, and Batman kneels behind them. He unchains Damian first, and he stumbles, scrambling to his feet.

He opens his mouth to report, or plead, or yell, but nothing comes out.

“We’re fine,” Richard snaps behind him, and Damian turns to see him yank away from father. “We need to get Tim, right now.”

Batman grunts, getting to his feet at the same time as Jason, “I know.”

“You know? Then what the hell are we--”

“Boys,” Father says, his hand twitches at his side, and Damian realizes he’s impatient. “Ra’s would expect me to go after him.”

Jason’s face clouds over, and he starts to say something else when the door slams open and Stephanie and Cassandra barge through, Timothy propped between them.

Damian stops breathing.

“Is he--?” Richard starts, taking half a step forward.

“No,” Cassandra says.

“But we’re about to be,” Stephanie cuts in, dragging Timothy over to their group. “Signal’s at the plane. He says heat signatures heading this way. Lots of them.”

Richard wraps an arm around Timothy’s shoulders, bends to hook the other around the back of his knees, and swoops him into his arms. “Then let's get the hell out of here.”

Jason grabs a staff from a fallen assassin and kicks the door open, leading the way. Damian tries to follow, but his feet are stuck to the ground. 

He’s not in shock. Damian doesn’t go into shock, he’s trained specifically to avoid it. He should be moving right now, following his family.

_ “Get up.” _

That’s what grandfather had said. Again and again.

How is it, that when he said it to Damian all those years ago, and Damian listened, it was compliance, but for Timothy, an act of defiance, a show of strength? Perhaps Damian is weaker, or maybe Timothy has nothing left to prove.

“Hey,” Stephanie says, suddenly beside him, and Damian doesn’t jump, he does  _ not. _ She sets a hand on his shoulder gently, “when we get back, we should make a crap ton of hot cocoa, and force Tim to watch the new Star Trek movies. The prequel ones, Into Darkness? With like, Chris Pine and everything. He hasn’t watched them because he thinks they’ll be horrible, but we won’t give him a choice.”

Damian looks up at her, eyes wide. He’d expected a comforting reassurance, or an attempted hug, or even a reprimand. He bites his bottom lip when it quivers, and this time, his feet comply when Stephanie pulls him away, moving her hand off his shoulder to hold his.

“Oh yeah,” She says as they run after the others, “It’s going to be so fun. He’s going to hate it.”

Even after boarding the plane and sitting down, Stephanie doesn’t let go of his hand. She keeps talking, about movies and Star Trek and her favorite ingredients in hot chocolate.

Damian thinks it’s both to comfort him, and herself.

He doesn’t see Timothy again until hours after they’re home. He’d been crowded by Alfred and father immediately, Richard and Jason refused to leave his side. Besides, Damian doesn’t think he deserves it, right now. His brother is injured, and it’s his fault.

So he sits with Stephanie, and allows her to hold his hand.

“He’s gonna be okay,” Duke says as he walks into the room, wearing the base layer of his uniform with a hoodie over it. “Alfred said he’s got some broken ribs, but luckily none of them hit his lungs. The electric shocks are pretty bad, but uh-- Alfred says they’ll heal fast, everything’s gonna taste like metal for a while, though. Other than that and the broken nose, he’s just bruised.”

Stephanie deflates in obvious relief. “Thank god.”

Cassandra, from her place on the floor, leaning against Stephanie and Damian’s legs, reaches up to pat his knee. “Knew it.”

“You okay?” Duke asks him, “I know Dick said none of you got beat on, but you’ve all got this… look in your eyes.”

“Did you know Timothy was stabbed, in the year he was gone, looking for father? That he almost died?”

Heavy silence fills the room, and then very quietly, Stephanie says, “I don’t know  _ anything _ about that year.”

Alfred steps into the training area, face grim. “Against my better judgement, Master Tim is awake. He is asking for you, Master Damian.”

Damian stalls, starts to stand, and stalls again. Stephanie squeezes his palm, “Want me to go with you?”

He doesn’t, but he also doesn’t want her to stop holding his hand. Eventually he shakes his head, pulling away in a jerky movement and following after Alfred.

Jason and Richard are already sitting next to Timothy’s medical gurney, Richard fiddles with his hands in his lap and Jason has his arms crossed, posture stiff.

When Damian sees Timothy, he almost runs away. When Timothy sees Damian, he smiles.

“There you are,” He slurs.

“Here I am.”

Timothy waves an arm, beckoning him closer. He grabs the sleeve of his shirt loosely when he’s close enough, his smile dropping to a stern expression. “Don’t start blaming yourself.”

“Why? This is entirely my fault,” Damian says with a scoff, and his voice wavers, just a little.

“No,” Tim breathes, and then laughs. “This is my fault. I agreed to let him help me, back then. Should’ve known it would blow up in my face.”

Richard clears his throat. “It isn’t like any of us left you with another option.”

“I forgave all of you for that year a long time ago.”

“But you still haven’t told us what the fuck happened,” Jason snaps.

Timothy closes his eyes. “It’s a long story. And a lot of it is reckless, and stupid. I did a lot of dumb stuff.”

Richard reaches out to take his hand, “You found Bruce when none of us even believed he was still alive.”

“I didn’t either, sometimes.”

Damian narrows his eyes, one of Timothy’s hands still clutching his clothes. “What do you mean? You just said you spent a year doing idiotic things to get him back.”

Timothy shakes his head. “Separate things. I was trying to get him back. I was being an idiot about it. I think that I… I think I doubted myself, and that’s why I was so reckless. In my head I had nothing to go home to, if I didn’t have Bruce...”

“You didn’t have anything,” Jason finishes, and it comes out like a growl. “You were trying to get yourself killed.”

_ “Tim.” _

“No! No, Jason, Dick, I--” Timothy swallows, deflating. “Not consciously, but I think that maybe I was.”

Damian takes a half step forward, “So taking my place as my grandfather’s heir, was that just another… reckless decision?”

Timothy’s grip tightens on his shirt, “No. Damian, I made that decision because I love you, and I can’t lose you.”

“What about us?” Richard asks when Damian only stands there, shocked.  _ “We _ love you,  _ we _ can’t lose you.”

His eyes flick between his brother’s, and then Timothy closes them. “I think I might forget that sometimes.”

Damian doesn’t give himself time to think. He hugs him.

He wraps his arms carefully around Timothy’s torso and presses his face into his uninjured side. 

“I’m sorry,” Timothy says, his voice a whisper. Under Damian’s cheek, his body trembles. “I didn’t mean to-- I’m trying not to see myself as expendable, I swear I am, but I just-- I’m  _ sorry, _ Damian, that I broke my promise to go to the zoo.”

Somehow, that says everything. Sorry that he didn’t realize Timothy is the one Damian wanted to go with, that he means enough to him to want that. Sorry he wasn’t honest about that year, sorry he didn’t trust them with his pain.

“I forgive you,” Damian says as two more sets of arms join the hug, “if you forgive me.”

_ “Always,” _ Timothy replies with conviction.

Damian stays at Timothy’s side, sitting with him on the bed, hugging him, for hours.

No one tells him to get up.


End file.
